Of course they knew what was going on. A seller "made a mistake" in listing the tickets, thus the tickets didn't actually exist in StubHub's eyes and they were forced to cancel the transaction.
It is impossible to know if the seller is telling the truth in this situation or not. Everybody makes mistakes, this seller just claims to have made a more costly one than usual.
StubHub is a marketplace, they can't investigate every time somebody claims to have made a mistake in listing their tickets.
IF the seller re-listed the exact same seats for a higher price once the original order was cancelled, I could see how StubHub could easily call out the fraudster and ban them from using their site... but even then the seller could just sign up using another credit card and a friend's address.
>When the reason given for the 'mistake' is obviously false, it's not impossible.
The problem is that you could not concretely determine that to be the case. Thousands if not millions of ticket sales are canceled for a variety of reasons on StubHub every single day.
They would be going broke trying to investigate all of them for fraud, not to mention open themselves up to potential lawsuits by the alleged perpetrators they wrongly defamed if they made a mistake.
The article says that stubhub charges a 20% fee when the seller cancels. So again, they absolutely are able to investigate every such situation while making a profit. Every ticket? No. Cases where they're making over a hundred dollars? Yes.
Sellers are a much smaller group and more in demand commodity than buyers. I would venture a guess that sites like Stubhub will generally favor the seller over the buyer in any dispute. That is the basis of this policy and exactly what happened in this instance.
I've never used StubHub. When you buy tickets, does a seller profile appear next to the listing, as in Amazon? If so, a cheap move by this seller should at least put a bad mark on the seller's public profile. That could benefit reputable sellers, though. Of course, anyone selling their first tickets on StubHub would be at a disadvantage because they'd have no reputation.
It is impossible to know if the seller is telling the truth in this situation or not. Everybody makes mistakes, this seller just claims to have made a more costly one than usual.
StubHub is a marketplace, they can't investigate every time somebody claims to have made a mistake in listing their tickets.
IF the seller re-listed the exact same seats for a higher price once the original order was cancelled, I could see how StubHub could easily call out the fraudster and ban them from using their site... but even then the seller could just sign up using another credit card and a friend's address.